Starbucks helps eliminate coffee cup waste with Betacup

Core77 is proud to be the media sponsor for Betacup, a design competition in search of a solution to the rampant wastage of unrecyclable paper coffee cups through an open innovation platform.

Starbucks is throwing their weight behind Betacup as well, sponsoring the competition as part of its aim to serve 100 percent of its coffee in reusable or recyclable cups by 2015. From Jim Hanna, Starbucks director of Environmental Impact:

Given the complexity of the disposable cup waste issue, we need a broad range of stakeholders to become involved in finding solutions. In addition to working with local municipal governments, materials suppliers and cup manufacturers to improve recycling infrastructures, we believe in harnessing the creativity of environmentally conscious individuals to identify new alternatives. We're looking forward to seeing how people respond to the challenge.

The coffee company will provide $20,000 in cash prizes for the most innovative ideas. Other sponsors include Denuo, community management experts, and Jovoto, a mass collaboration community for creatives.

The contest launches April 1st with a final deadline of June 15th, We'll announce it as soon as it's live; for now, keep up with betacup here.

13 Comments

If you recycle polyurethane and design your new cups, gaining contributors to the core, you could run random advertising links printed on the outside of these cups which will help people find products and services alike. If its your cups and your design, you could pretty much select who you wanted to advertise for, not forgetting, to make mention on one side, that you are also contributing towards resolving global poverty by donating a percentage of company profits in your campaign to clean up the environment by recycling. And if you select my idea as the winner would you kindly donate every dollar to help the Children's Heart Foundation in Chennai, India, managed by Dr. Mani . Thank You

The betacup contest is now open!
Some good thinking going on in this thread, submit these ideas to the community for a shot at the prize money - see http://www.thebetacup.com for signup details. Even if you don't have an idea, you can be part of the project by rating and discussing concepts submitted by others.

@Toby @thebetacup I am glad you are taking this initiative, it should prove an interesting forum for "blue sky thinking" and discussion and could pave the way for other such competitions/forums.
I note your post about contributor's retaining IP rights to any suggested product, but this seems a little disingenuous since in such a forum situation it is unlikely that contributors will have sought IP protection for their ideas before disclosing them, disqualifying any possible future IP. And, if they already had a patent on their idea, why would they bother with the betacup challenge rather than approaching a cup manufacturer or Starbucks direct, probably with the benefit of protection through a confidentiality agreement?
Regards
Keith
Your clarification of exactly how the issue of IP is being addressed would be appreciated

@billy Thanks for your comment. Persons submitting their ideas to the betacup challenge retain 100% of the intellectual property.
@ken We couldn't agree more, which is why we are encouraging people to think about solutions outside of the cup itself and consider the systems that coffee us served in and ways to change consumer behavior.
Toby @thebetacup

well done starbucks & betacup! big business is at it again. getting the world to collaborate to solve your billion dollar problem, and giving the lucky reciepient 20K (and no proprietary rights). this doesn't seem at all unfair. well done.

Design isn't necessary always about making a physical items.
A solution could also do the trick.
Just give discount for patron whom bring their own cup (personal & reusable) when buying their coffee will do the trick.
1. you don't need addition cost to manufacture new product (either way if you do, u will still consume energry and add on to environmental issues, regardless if the BetaCup is recycable or not. Recycling needs energry as well)
2. It would be the same as promoting consumer to shop along with their own shopping bags in certain places.
3. The best stands for this solution, is that, everyone already had their own personal cup in some form or another.
Its a win win design solution. Should prevent re-inventing the wheel if possible.

If we join together as a global society and change our ways of drinking coffee altogether and replace this habit with drinking Tea on the go, it will instantly solve the problem. Firstly as less people will drink coffee so less coffee cups and secondly drinking tea makes you look more intelligent.
For the guy above. the problem you have when producing paper cups is not only the cup itself, which as you know is not manufactured using variable kinds of adhesive and printed with multiple kinds of inks and coated with various varnishes to stop the liquid penetrating the paper thus making it impure. For this reason it isn't such a simple answer of put it back in the ground as the numerous process the paper has gone through to make it into the cup means when it goes back into the ground those 58 billion paper cups release a mass of toxins in to the ground.
Also manufacturing and transporting cups use tons of fuel not only in the manufacturing of the machines which manufacture the cups but in the molds and the energy used by the design consultancy which designs the cup in the first place.
As you can see all this is adding up to a mass of wasted energy which can be significantly minimized.
Sustainability isn't just about the environment and if it was a financial scam don;t you think the banking industry would be a better target rather than small town manufacturing. Also making the product at home could be classed as more evil if done wrong as buying a kettle, filling it up from your tap boiling too much water, purchasing the coffee from the shop buying a mug manufacturing a mug blah blah blah. Which takes the most steps and which serves the leaset people for the energy involved?
Away from the drivvel. Good competition can't wait to see the results.

Let me get this straight. Paper is carbon, and if you take paper and put it in landfills, isn't that "sequestration"? Trees take the carbon out of the air, and you put the paper in the ground? So, since I don't buy the "Global Warming" con, and since there are viable technologies that will turn landfills into domestic energy sources, my suggestions will be based solely on solving the "problem" you pose, of reducing "waste". #1, a simple fine shredder could reduce the cup paper and napkins to a size that, when mixed with the spent coffee grounds, could be packaged and sold/given to clients who want mulch. #2, the same products could be dried, and burned for electricity. #3, Regular customers could be issued two re-usable insulated cups, and they could exchange the empty one for a clean fresh one, with each new cup of coffee. Let's face it, encouraging people to drive to a place and consume something they could make at home is "evil" by environmentalist standards, but since I value commerce and industry and jobs, and I believe the "man-made climate change issue" is a criminal political conspiracy and financial scam, my interest in this issue is purely one of offering potential solutions to the "problem" posed.

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